Josh Hutcherson Will Be In Journey 3, Set For Back-To-Back Shooting Schedule Of Mockingjay Films

Since apparently there’s some sort of holiday tomorrow where everybody gives thanks for the things in their life (sounds made up to me), MTV have conducted a thanks-themed interview with Hunger Games star Josh Hutcherson.

During the interview, along with being shy about his habit of following Kim Kardashian and espousing his love for reality TV show Gigolos, Hutcherson outlined his plans for 2013.

We’re shooting the next two Hunger Games movies back-to-back, and then I’m shooting another Journey, so as long as the world doesn’t end, I have a busy 2013 coming up.

The journey he’s referring to is the family movie franchise which gave him his first big break: Journey to the Centre of the Earth, which begins filming its second sequel next year.

Mockingjay, the final instalment in the Hunger Games series, has been split into two different parts that will, apparently, be shot back-to-back. It’s becoming a common practice for book adaptations these days, with Twilight, Harry Potter, and The Hobbit all taking the same road. The choice may simply be an artistic one, because editing stories down to make a two-hour movie is hard, and it’s much easier to just include everything from the book.

It’s likely that the studio were equally motivated by financial gains, however. Shooting the two films back-to-back is potentially much cheaper than shooting them separately (see the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows films, which each had a budget of $125-150m compared to The Half Blood Prince‘s $250m), and since the large fanbase for the books will all pay to see both films, Lionsgate can double their profits by releasing Mockingjay in two parts.